Saturday, May 23, 2009

This time it's my turn. I was flabbergasted (but delighted) a couple of weeks ago when a nice man phoned me, told me to sit down and informed me that I'd won the Pascall Prize for excellence in arts journalism, the only award for arts criticism in Australia. The prize is named in honour of the flamboyant journalist Geraldine Pascall, who died tragically young in 1983, when I was half way through my cadetship on the Melbourne Herald and the thought of being a crrritic hadn't entered my head. I wish I had met her. To say I am honoured doesn't really cover it.

I won it for both my reviews for the Australian under arts editors Miriam Cosic and Matthew Westwood, who have been the best editors I've worked for (and whom I now realise were quite brave to employ me), and for my work on this blog. Word of the prize got out yesterday - not from me, as I've been the soul of discretion - and it seems that the news has caused a bit of flurry. The Australianhas a story this morning, of course, and there's also a piece in the Age. Odd, as always, to see how I'm seen.

Well many, apparently, have been souls of discretion :) But what a news, and how worthy of being indiscrete about! Congratulations, congratulations!

It must be so rewarding, after all that brouhaha, to have your critical practice recognised. Oh it does make a good Saturday morning for many of us to know merit goes rewarded. Brunswick cheers Croggon :)

Dear Alison, Congratulations on the award! It is in every way justified. Maintaining your blog alone is a Herculean labour that has been finally recognised. And you have promoted the cause of blogging as a viable part of the 'print' media continuum in the process.

Thank you everyone for the good wishes. They are most deeply felt, and very much appreciated! (It seems, btw, that it was the Pscall Foundation itself who let the cats out of the bag - they were all very pleased with the publicity). Now I think that everyone in Australia except me has read the judge's report. But I guess it will be online next week.